[Official] Armata Discussion thread #2

Are you suggesting that every vehicle needs MBT protection levels all the time?

A medium brigade fighting a conventional enemy brigade for instance... the medium brigade has 25 ton vehicles protected from a range of threats with vehicle armour protecting from a range of enemy vehicle mounted weapons... both guns and missiles.

Perhaps one should ask the question, can a tracked or wheeled 25 ton vehicle with advanced ceramic armour and NERA, and of course Shtora, APS that will stop APFSDS rounds, and Nakidka to make lock ons difficult for thermal guided weapons like Javelin going to be protected...

Lets take a US unit... 120mm smoothbore on tanks and 25mm autocannon on IFVs and TOW II ATGMs and Javelin ATGMs. Assuming the APS is effective and the 25mm autocannon is not effective all the vehicles in a Kurganets unit should have reasonable protection from anything a US equivalent could direct at it even though its MBT is only 25 tons and presumably has a fire and forget tube fired ATGM.

In most operations... and we are not really considering WWIII though it should apply there too... the enemy will have a fairly conventional force of MBTs and IFVs and APCs and a multitude of other light vehicles in every unit. Previously there was no heavy unit so the vast majority of vehicles are light armour or soft skin vehicles... even light brigades equipped with Typhoon will be better armoured overall than this, with medium units having much better average armour even if modern enemy MBTs will have better protection all the other vehicles will be better protected than all the other vehicles in the foreign unit.

The whole concept is to reduce the logistics tail and prevent a situation where vehicles with lighter protection can be picked off leaving the heavier vehicles isolated.

Mixing the vehicles ruins both reasons for creating vehicle families in the first place.

_________________“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion […] but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”

― Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

magnumcromagnon wrote:If were not talking about 'month long sieges' ground based drone attack vehicles would be much cheaper, mass produced quickly, and ultimately much safer (with far less political blowback). There's already plenty of those already in the works, and it'll end up proving to be much better than a mixed weight class brigade.

But we're not discussing "manned vs. unmanned" in case you didn't notice.The discussion was about application of different manned vehicles in battlefield situatons. If you so insist, current unmanned vehicles depend too much on (jammable) datalinks to replace manned vehicles fully.

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GarryB wrote:Are you suggesting that every vehicle needs MBT protection levels all the time?

No. I'm suggesting that giving some heavy armor to combat units is never a bad idea.

A medium brigade fighting a conventional enemy brigade for instance... the medium brigade has 25 ton vehicles protected from a range of threats with vehicle armour protecting from a range of enemy vehicle mounted weapons... both guns and missiles.

25 ton vehicles will have less survivability than MBTs.

Perhaps one should ask the question, can a tracked or wheeled 25 ton vehicle with advanced ceramic armour and NERA, and of course Shtora, APS that will stop APFSDS rounds, and Nakidka to make lock ons difficult for thermal guided weapons like Javelin going to be protected...

Yes, of course. But we are talking about percentage, not whether or not surviving javelin is possible in the first place. In case of the former, heavy armor is greatly favored.

Lets take a US unit... 120mm smoothbore on tanks and 25mm autocannon on IFVs and TOW II ATGMs and Javelin ATGMs. Assuming the APS is effective and the 25mm autocannon is not effective all the vehicles in a Kurganets unit should have reasonable protection from anything a US equivalent could direct at it even though its MBT is only 25 tons and presumably has a fire and forget tube fired ATGM.

Again, you're using absolute logic: either it's effective or not effective. That's not how it works.

In most operations... and we are not really considering WWIII though it should apply there too... the enemy will have a fairly conventional force of MBTs and IFVs and APCs and a multitude of other light vehicles in every unit. Previously there was no heavy unit so the vast majority of vehicles are light armour or soft skin vehicles... even light brigades equipped with Typhoon will be better armoured overall than this, with medium units having much better average armour even if modern enemy MBTs will have better protection all the other vehicles will be better protected than all the other vehicles in the foreign unit.

Vehicle armor became better, that's true. But so did their guns.Nowadays, even jeeps can be equipped with 30mm cannons against which typhoon's armor won't stand a chance:http://www.army-guide.com/eng/product3602.html

The whole concept is to reduce the logistics tail and prevent a situation where vehicles with lighter protection can be picked off leaving the heavier vehicles isolated.

Mixing the vehicles ruins both reasons for creating vehicle families in the first place.

Alternatively, light-only units in offensive or meeting engagement pasture can suffer significantly higher losses than they'd be able to inflict against even outnumbered enemy MBT platoons. On the other hand, chasing those around with expensive (and rare) heavy-only brigades will be logistically much more draining.

No. I'm suggesting that giving some heavy armor to combat units is never a bad idea.

During WWII the Soviets had mixed tank formations with T-26 light tanks, T-34 medium tanks, and either T-35 or KV-1 heavy tanks. Operationally they found that the T-26s would arrive first and get wiped out, the T-34s would arrive next and slug it out with the enemy, and the KV-1s and T-35s arrived late and sometimes not at all.

the purpose of the vehicle families is to unify mobility and protection and firepower.

there is no tank today that is invulnerable to enemy fire... new guided tank fired rounds will likely make that even more true of near future vehicles.

Smaller, lighter more mobile vehicles have a place... in a modern US army unit there are Abrams tanks but there are also much thinner skinned vehicles which are vulnerable.

Having a unit with all MBT level protection could be used against the enemy front line with lighter vehicles forming breakthrough forces.

Equally the MBT forces could be used in specific situations where heavier armour is useful, but most of the time engaging enemy forces from standoff ranges should mean heavy armour protection is not needed.

25 ton vehicles will have less survivability than MBTs.

With an APS fitted and Nakidka and of course NERA and Shtora-2 their survivability could be very high to a range of weapons on the battlefield.

Of course nothing is invincible... even a MBT, but the new designs will take crew survivability to new levels.

In case of the former, heavy armor is greatly favored.

Is it?

The replacement proposal for the Abrams is a 40 ton plastic tank that gives up armour protection for mobility... strategic and tactical.

Again, you're using absolute logic: either it's effective or not effective. That's not how it works.

No it isn't... in real combat so far the enemy wont have anywhere near the competency of the US Army even if it has some of the weapons it uses. In such cases the new Russian vehicles should cut through the enemy like the US forces in Desert Storm, but in the ensuing COIN operations might take some losses. Of course the important factor is that the new vehicles will likely protect Russian soldiers rather better than any other vehicles operational anywhere else including NATO.

Nowadays, even jeeps can be equipped with 30mm cannons against which typhoon's armor won't stand a chance:

A bit dangerous fitting a 30mm cannon to a jeep when even small arms fire can defeat you.

A UAV jeep with Kornet could destroy that jeep from 10km with the HE version of the Kornet-M

Alternatively, light-only units in offensive or meeting engagement pasture can suffer significantly higher losses than they'd be able to inflict against even outnumbered enemy MBT platoons.

A light brigade wont be a few jeep like vehicles fizzing around. If they spot an enemy MBT they will be able to deal with it directly by themselves or with supporting artillery and air power.

Hell a large MBT force will likely draw attention from the local Iskander unit or Smerch unit.

On the other hand, chasing those around with expensive (and rare) heavy-only brigades will be logistically much more draining.

The heavy units wont be scattered randomly. They will have situations where they will prefer to use them and criteria for their use.

_________________“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion […] but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”

― Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

And yet active and passive protection systems are not as widely distributed, but anti tank weapons on other hand are. Even IDF has small number of APS when they had plans to even equip jeeps and helicopters with it.

Have you actually been paying attention to this thread? It's already been established at ad nausem that 'high risk' 'Grozny' style environments would be handled by Armata brigades, medium and light brigades such as the VDV would have the predominate number of Kurganets, Boomerang, and Typhoon vehicles. If it's only 'a dangerous object' as opposed to and entire city, than ground based attack drones and aerial drones could handle the job safer and cheaper than any other alternative...

Yes, if we talk about months-long siege battles. But imagine the situation:

A light brigade is holding a frontline sector (infantry is good at defense). Suddenly, intel reports that enemy tank platoon popped-out in nearby village. HQ decides an attack should be made to eliminate the threat...

That light brigade will no doubt include its own anti-tank battalion or independent company (or at the very least each motor-rifles battalion of that brigade will have its own AT platoon), with AT vehicles based on light platforms such as the Typhoon, and/or the Kornet-D Tigr vehicles, and also with some equipment such as Kornet-EM ATGM teams & truck-towed Sprut-Bs, etc... - they'll be the ones to handle the threat in that case.They'll certainly be 'lighter' vehicles than the MBTs, and cheaper - but as they're specifically designed to deal with tanks, no doubt that's what they'll do and do well.

The expensive and fewer heavy 'tank' forces (i.e. Armata vehicles) should be reserved through punching through the enemy lines, or places of intense urban combat, etc... using your heaviest armoured vehicles, designed for mechanized assaults, in a defensive role - is a waste. You have far cheaper but just as deadly AT, anti-personnel, anti-air equipment for exactly that task instead.

And yet active and passive protection systems are not as widely distributed, but anti tank weapons on other hand are. Even IDF has small number of APS when they had plans to even equip jeeps and helicopters with it.

I would expect that all the new vehicles will have both passive and active defence systems... they likely will treat it like they are treating the Ratnik super soldier system where components are not treated separately but fully integrated as a system.

In this case you can justify expensive components like MMW radar when it is not just used for the APS system, but is integrated into the fire control system for detecting targets in bad weather and at night at long range.

_________________“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion […] but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”

― Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

Interesting fan-made cgi presentation of the perspective BMPT version of Armata:

...I see one inaccuracy, the 30 mm cannon of the left side of the turret is not present on the miniature models that were presented to Rogozin. If I remember correctly the left side had a 40 mm Balkan grenade launcher.

Edit: The another inaccuracy that I see is that the main gun looks like a high pressure gun, where as the BMPT Armata model shown to Rogozin had a low-medium pressure 120 mm gun mortar barrel. The last inaccuracy is in the title of the video; Armata is not a tank but a heavy vehicle platform for heavy armor brigades.

Last edited by magnumcromagnon on Sat Dec 27, 2014 3:36 am; edited 1 time in total

...I think the extra sloped armor is to protect the extra ammo in the turret bustle, and not the crew which will be protected in a armored capsule.

i think the second vehicle next to armata is a self-propelled 120 mm mortar/cannon

Actually it's widely believed (confirmed possibly?) that the Armata BMPT shown in the photo has a medium pressure 120 mm rifled mortar cannon, to the left the Kurganets with sloped armor looks like it has a 57 mm cannon. Also I found another inaccuracy in the CGI video, apparently the CGI artist confused the BMPT Armata's GSH-6-23 vulcan with the GSH-12.7 that you would see on the Soviet Mil Mi-24 Hinds from the 1980's.

i think the second vehicle next to armata is a self-propelled 120 mm mortar/cannon

I don't think the BMPT and the other vehicles next to it on the table are to scale, so direct comparisons of gun calibre etc are not useful.

I like the short vid, but suspect the designer of the cgi has decided that the weapons are a 125mm smoothbore main gun, a 4 barrel gatling 50 cal MG as from a model D Hind, and of course the 2A42 30mm cannon.

I rather suspect this is actually a MBT Armata model.

The heavy sloping of the turret armour is good as it maximises the effect of lighter armour.

The BMPT model we have seen seems to have a rather different armament... the main gun is a 120mm gun/mortar as used on Vena support vehicles, which would be excellent for direct and indirect fire support and also delivering guided heavy shells to targets at 12km or more.

the large gatling gun would be the 23mm cannon on the BMPT as the 50 cal would just lack HE power and range, while the large calibre tube on the other side of the main gun in my opinion is not long enough to be a high velocity 57mm gun as would be fitted to an IFV.

In my opinion it is more likely a 40mm grenade launcher or 57mm grenade launcher for targets that don't warrant a 120mm round and 23mm cannon rounds are too light to effect.

As a MBT load out the one in the video should be good enough for a range of targets and would allow the vehicle to operate in a range of environments and engage a variety of target types that a normal tank would be vulnerable to.

Of course the 12.7mm gatling could easily be replaced with a 23mm gun in 23 x 115mm calibre as the ammo wont take up that much more room, yet will offer a vast increase in performance in the HE fire power it can deliver. The much higher rate of fire can be tempered with shorter bursts, or fixed round number bursts to avoid wasting ammo. The multiple barrels should prevent barrel overheating and more targets to be engaged with less wear on the barrels.

The current Hind has a twin barrel 23mm cannon using the same ammo, so replacement with a twin barrel version is another option that is lighter, yet is still a formidable weapon also used by other Army assets.

_________________“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion […] but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”

― Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

hmm, the upcoming appearance of APS that can intercept APFSDS has got me thinking- what is the best counter for this new type of countermeasure?

one can always say go faster- but then what stops the other side from just improving reaction times on their system.

make it stealthy seems ok-ish, but a neat counter is use of widely spaced phased array radars to detect more than a 30mm circle and have a look at the sides too.

other brute force approach apart from getting faster is getting fatter, i mean more massive to resist an impact and preserve its trajectory- 1 problem is what stops the other side from just doing the same with their interceptors or getting creative and use shaped charges to punch holes.

Its really interesting problem- more likely for the russians complex solution of maybe all three mentioned above and some more- only problem is that these next gen rounds would be really expensive. And next gen tank and tank-like targets are going to be more resilient to penetration ie isolated ammo and fuel is expected and would necessitate expenditure of a lot more ammo for a single target. hopefully nothing like m8929e4 price that costs half a car.

Easy solution, if you are in urban warfare or have enough ATGM's overwhelm it from different angles, two possibilities.

a) You will overwhelm the APS System with different and lot of ATGM's RPG's fired at it, also with RPG-30's with predecoy.

b) Use some old PG-7 and alike warheads that cost nothing and wouldn't do much to the tank anyway and deplete his APS countermeasure explosives, problem is you give him time window and expose your location to him like Shtora which turns the turret into the direction of the source of the Laser and with Okhotnik installed in T-90MS and most probably will be installed in Armata and Kurganetz it will give you no time for preperations or 2nd shots, so possibility A) should be the safest way if you are limited to ground forces like infantry with AT weaponary.

Werewolf wrote:Easy solution, if you are in urban warfare or have enough ATGM's overwhelm it from different angles, two possibilities.

a) You will overwhelm the APS System with different and lot of ATGM's RPG's fired at it, also with RPG-30's with predecoy.

b) Use some old PG-7 and alike warheads that cost nothing and wouldn't do much to the tank anyway and deplete his APS countermeasure explosives, problem is you give him time window and expose your location to him like Shtora which turns the turret into the direction of the source of the Laser and with Okhotnik installed in T-90MS and most probably will be installed in Armata and Kurganetz it will give you no time for preperations or 2nd shots, so possibility A) should be the safest way if you are limited to ground forces like infantry with AT weaponary.

those work if you are in urban terrain as you said- im thinking more of general purpose countermeasures.

top attack EFP from big ace 152 shells seem like pretty great option too- those are pretty fast - as fast as what APFSDS dream to be when fired from ETC guns. and a succesful intercept is more likely to rain a lot more hypervelocity fragements on the roof than protect the vehicle.

Another option would be Thermobaric warhead since it won't matter if the tank counters it with APS, it will still go boom and due the high pressure it will damage or destroy the AESA radar and hopefully rip off or damage cannon and destroy optics. This is of course speculation but i think Thermobaric weapon of even RPG round could actually destroy the on or the other system and that with a high probability. A tank that can not shoot, see or defend itself via broken APS, is nothing else than a driving target.

KomissarBojanchev wrote:Do you think the russians will eventually manage to make conventional guns fire thermobaric warheads?

Conventional guns? Tank guns you mean?

Well that would be possible without much of hazzle but i think the current HE-Frag grenades with airburst capability are already capable enough and cost most probably less than thermobaric rounds would cost and so far haven't seen anyone using or designing thermobaric weapons for intentional crippling of enemy armors offensive or defensive capabilities.

Do you think the russians will eventually manage to make conventional guns fire thermobaric warheads?

What would stop them from delivering thermobaric payloads from conventional guns?

Regarding defeating enemy APS systems I would simply take a standard calibre round like the 14.5 x 114mm round or the 23 x 115mm round and develop a sabot round (because it would have the lowest drag and highest real velocity and so mimic an APFSDS round best over the greatest distances) and fit the nose with a radar invisible ballistic cover with the actual nose tip being a corner reflector to make it look rather bigger than it really is on radar.

Remember most APS systems only scan the last 50m or so around the tank, so it just has to get to the target area quickly and then over the last 50m appear to be a small calibre high velocity penetrator that will threaten to do serious damage to the tank if not intercepted. The enemy APS system will have specific parameters to decide engage or don't engage... a high velocity large calibre incoming penetrator will be... engage... there wont be a human in the loop because there wont be time.

20 rounds coming in in a burst should render the APS system spent of interception munitions.

_________________“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion […] but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”

― Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

GarryB wrote:Regarding defeating enemy APS systems I would simply take a standard calibre round like the 14.5 x 114mm round or the 23 x 115mm round and develop a sabot round (because it would have the lowest drag and highest real velocity and so mimic an APFSDS round best over the greatest distances) and fit the nose with a radar invisible ballistic cover with the actual nose tip being a corner reflector to make it look rather bigger than it really is on radar.

Remember most APS systems only scan the last 50m or so around the tank, so it just has to get to the target area quickly and then over the last 50m appear to be a small calibre high velocity penetrator that will threaten to do serious damage to the tank if not intercepted. The enemy APS system will have specific parameters to decide engage or don't engage... a high velocity large calibre incoming penetrator will be... engage... there wont be a human in the loop because there wont be time.

20 rounds coming in in a burst should render the APS system spent of interception munitions.

great idea- though i would prefer a 30mm high velocity cannon for its versatility and larger propellant. with computer controlled FCS once the gunner locks on the target and fires the trigger a prep. burst of decoy rounds followed by the apfsds a tiny delay later would screw the heck out of most APS. i would also add some electronic fused rounds filled with radar chaff. that way the apfsds just strolls through the APS nose (most have delay time for another interception plus the radar chaff cloud just blocked accurate radar picture).

The 30mm round is a much larger round so you would have rather fewer decoy rounds, though conversely it would mean all your APC type vehicles could have a reserve of decoy rounds.

the reason I suggest 23mm is because it is a small compact round that could be carried by any vehicle able to carry a HMG... which is most

it can also carry useful ammo like HE, so these decoy rounds could also be used against light vehicles as an AP round... once all the APS munitions are used up then Kornet missile based attacks can be launched against the heavy vehicles and guided top attack missiles can be directed against the rest.

You could probably fit three to four APFSDS darts in a single 23mm case with a ballistic cap to make ammo handling easier. Corner reflectors on the nose tips and also on the fin leading edges should make them appear to be much larger on any radar pointed at them and their dart shape should allow a very low drag design so high velocity can be maintained over useful distances.

_________________“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion […] but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”

― Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

GarryB wrote:The 30mm round is a much larger round so you would have rather fewer decoy rounds, though conversely it would mean all your APC type vehicles could have a reserve of decoy rounds.

the reason I suggest 23mm is because it is a small compact round that could be carried by any vehicle able to carry a HMG... which is most

it can also carry useful ammo like HE, so these decoy rounds could also be used against light vehicles as an AP round... once all the APS munitions are used up then Kornet missile based attacks can be launched against the heavy vehicles and guided top attack missiles can be directed against the rest.

You could probably fit three to four APFSDS darts in a single 23mm case with a ballistic cap to make ammo handling easier. Corner reflectors on the nose tips and also on the fin leading edges should make them appear to be much larger on any radar pointed at them and their dart shape should allow a very low drag design so high velocity can be maintained over useful distances.

true, and good points. id just add making some of the decoy rounds as "soft" rounds- made of light composites treated with RCS increasing measures. they would be easy to shatter from the front- so a nice solid hit with a hit to kill projectile would release lots of confusing decoys - and most of them would have similar if not larger RCS than the apfsds.

KomissarBojanchev wrote:Do you think the russians will eventually manage to make conventional guns fire thermobaric warheads?

Conventional guns? Tank guns you mean?

Well that would be possible without much of hazzle but i think the current HE-Frag grenades with airburst capability are already capable enough and cost most probably less than thermobaric rounds would cost and so far haven't seen anyone using or designing thermobaric weapons for intentional crippling of enemy armors offensive or defensive capabilities.

HEF will never give quite the amount of exponential increase in blast power thermobaric gives. If the shmel launcher with it's puny calibre has the power of a conventional HE 152mm howitzer round then imagine how powerful would the 125-152mm thermobaric tank shell would be.